In many areas of the world, it is often desirable to raise plants which are not native to the area and which may require a warmer climate than provided in the particular area. It is possible to construct outdoor greenhouses to raise such plants, however, in many climates outdoor greenhouses are impratical and overly expensive for a single family use, due to the severity of the climate, both in terms of temperature and sunlight. Occasionaly it is possible to raise some such plants indoors however, for other plants the temperature and humidity even indoors is not sufficient, and for many plants insufficient sunlight is available indoors. Of course, it is often desirable to have many such plants raised indoors, both for convenience and for the sake of the appearance which many such plants have. Thus, an indoor greenhouse would often be a useful device.
A great number of greenhouses have been described previously. Many of these are not adapted for indoor use and as a result, take up an undue amount of horizontal space, while wasting vertical space which could not in any event be occupied as a result of the presence of such a structure. As well, such prior devices are usually relatively complex in construction and therefore expensive. As well, most do not make any provision for artificial lighting, and where such provision is made, the lights are horizontally disposed at a top end of the greenhouse, thereby preventing plants from being stacked on shelves in the greenhouse to take maximum advantage of vertical space in any house, as the light penetrating to the lower shelves would be insufficient for many plants. In addition, many such prior greenhouses suffer from one or more of the following disadvantages. Such greenhouses often are not readily assembled and disassembled therefore making movement of them difficult, they do not provide easy access to an area throughout the entire greenhouse, and do not provide any simple means by which the entire contents of the greenhouse may be displayed in an almost unobstructed manner when desired.
It is desirable then to have an indoor greenhouse which utilizes a minimum horizontal space, while utilizing a maximum vertical space, which is relatively simple to construct and assemble and disassemble, which provides an adequate means of artificially lighting a plurality of trays of plants stacked within the greenhouse, which provides a means of easy access throughout the entire interior of the greenhouse, and which provides a means whereby the entire contents of the greenhouse may be displayed almost completely unobstructed by the greenhouse structure when desired.